


Melinda May Gets Stuff Done

by fallen_sparrow



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, all the ladies bond, may is tired of everyone's shit, melinda may kicks ass, she takes skye and simmons on a mission, then they all go get milkshakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 03:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallen_sparrow/pseuds/fallen_sparrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>May, Simmons and Skye go on a mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Melinda May Gets Stuff Done

Melinda May had little patience for amateurs. More specifically she had little patience for kids. She understood a lack of experience, but May didn’t think that excused childish behavior. Not in SHIELD, and especially not on her bus.

After Ward and Fitz had gotten into a protracted argument about the weight of the Night Night Pistol, which apparently was half an ounce too heavy for Ward when it carried the requisite six knock-out charges, and after that argument had degenerated into boasts that Fitz could shoot better than Ward if he had a bit of training, Coulson had stepped in. Unfortunately, Coulson had also been talking with Agent Blake lately, which made him worried about how maybe the whole young team and fancy plane thing was maybe screaming “midlife crisis.” So while Coulson had drawn the line at setting up a shooting range inside the bus, he made the-oh so reasonable suggestion of taking Ward and Fitz’s contest outside.

Did they have a mission? Of course they did. Was Coulson still facilitating some childish rivalry between Ward and Fitz? It certainly seemed like it.

Skye had grabbed a beer and her laptop and was loudly asking Simmons where they kept the lawn chairs and the beach umbrellas.

Simmons was in the lab, studiously ignoring the antics around her, and only acknowledged Skye when the hacker turned off the lights in the lab. “Come on Jemma, let’s watch!” Skye declared, setting a sunhat on the scientist’s head.

Jemma frowned, “I’m trying to get some work done.”

“Yes, but why would you pass up the chance to watch Fitz and Ward snark at each other?”

“That hardly sounds novel.”

“At least come out into the sunlight. You know, the sun? Big fiery thing in the sky that makes it light outside.”

Simmons narrowed her eyes. “Yes, well you know, I may spend most of my time in the lab but as you can see there’s plenty of light coming in through the cargo doors right now.”

Skye was about to counter that direct sunlight facilitated vitamin D production and didn’t Simmons want to witness some chemistry in action, when there was a noise on the stairs.

“Hot damn Agent May,” Skye muttered. Simmons looked up and saw that, for the first time possibly ever, Melinda May was wearing jeans. Yes, they were dark jeans and yes she had replaced her black leather SHIELD vest for a logo less black leather jacket, but it was Agent May in civilian clothes. “So badass,” Skye continued, almost reverently.

May didn’t seem to have heard. She noticed the two women in the lab, and walked over, snatching the sunhat from Simmons’ head. “Get in the car,” she ordered. “We’re going to get something done while those three idiots try to see who has a bigger—”

“Um, where exactly are we going?” Simmons interrupted hastily, looking longingly back at her microscope.

“To find our suspect,” May replied, already walking over to the SUV.

Skye frowned. “Isn’t this supposed to be, you know, an undercover sort of thing?” Because really Melinda May wasn’t exactly the one you sent in to nice talk people.

“Yes.”

Skye set her beer down on the nearest flat surface and started walking quickly to the car, because Melinda May gets stuff done and doesn't wait up.

“Leave the lab coat, Simmons,” May ordered as she turned the keys in the ignition.

Simmons and Skye huddled in the backseat of the SUV, neither wanting to be the one to sit next to May in the front. May revved the engine, and then drove down the ramp of the cargo hold.

“Whoa!” Skye cried, as she saw that May was going to drive right between the boys and the makeshift target Coulson had attached to a tree.

Skye could hear Ward’s angry exclamation and Fitz’s insistence that this meant that his last shot didn’t count. Simmons’s eyes rolled into the back of her head.

They arrived at their destination with little talking. Skye had pulled up the profile of their suspect on her laptop, and had refreshed herself on the details. She was a woman on The List. Capitalized because it was a list of people with super powers and that always deserved capital letters. She’d failed to report to her supervising agent and because they were in the area they’d been called upon to check in with her.

“I can’t imagine why anyone with super powers would want to work at the DMV,” Simmons declared as May parked the vehicle in the parking lot of a crowded strip mall.

“Public service?” Skye countered, mostly just to keep talking.

Simmons pulled the elastic from her hair, letting it settle over her shoulders. “Please! No one goes into public service to have to manage a group of childish impatient adults.”

There was a bark of laughter from May in the front seat. She could relate.

“Alright,” May schooled herself. “We go in, ask to speak with her. No badges, we don’t want her to run.”

“Do I get to do the talking?” Skye bounced a little on the car seat. “Because Simmons thinks flirting with and shooting at a guy is basically the same thing.”

“Just because I panicked that one time, doesn’t mean I can’t act appropriately in social situations.” Simmons declared.

May narrowed her eyes. “No. You two can pretend like you’re just here to get licenses.”

Skye frowned. “That probably won’t work. They’ll think Jemma is an illegal immigrant from England or something.”

“Well, you look like a teenager, so they’ll probably ask where your mother is,” Simmons countered.

May got out of the car in response.

 

* * *

 

“Ma’am, she’s working right now,” the woman at the desk was saying. “Do you have your social security card and license, or not?”

May gave the DMV worker a look that would stop hearts, and reached into the pocket of her jacket. The woman barely scanned the documents. “Here’s the paperwork. Fill that out and wait until they call your number in those seats over there.”

“Next,” the woman at the desk said, and Skye exchanged a worried glance with Simmons.

“Do you have your social security card and a form of ID?”

“Oh, no,” Skye said. “We’re, we’re just with her,” she nodded towards May. Simmons put on a thousand watt smile and bobbed her head in agreement.

The DMV worker looked skeptical. “Well, then you can take a seat over there as well.”

Skye dragged Simmons by the elbow until they took two seats next to Agent May. “Whatcha gonna do now?” Skye hissed, looking at the stack of forms attached to a clipboard.

May pulled out a pen and started filling in a pseudonym in angry block letters.

“Do you think they have Wi-Fi in here?” Skye muttered, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “I should have brought my laptop in.”

Wordlessly, May reached over to a table next to her and shoved two magazines at Skye and Simmons. “Ooh I call this one,” Skye declared, snatching the technology catalogue. Simmons held up a _Cooking Lite_ , and made a face.

The DMV office was relatively full for a Wednesday morning, with only a few chairs empty. The workers, sitting in little cubicles in full view of the waiting public were calling out new numbers at a rate of one every ten minutes.

After three numbers had been called, Simmons threw her magazine down in disgust. “I can’t believe the nonsense they print in these.”

Skye dog-eared the page she was on. “What, did they call ‘chips’ fries?”

An eye roll, then, “No! They’re a cooking magazine; I just don’t see what point they have in talking about anti-oxidants. It’s all ‘eat pomegranate seeds they’ll absorb the free radicals in your body and stop aging.’ It’s almost as if they don’t realize that not all antioxidants are the same. I mean, they put quinones in your average can of beans, but that doesn’t mean that they’re particularly good for you just because they can absorb free radicals!”

“Right, so awful,” Skye said in monotone.

Simmons whipped out a pen and started sketching a hexagon on the cover of the magazine. She added additional lines on two parallel sides, and then began making curved arrows attack the structure.

“What are you doing?”

“Adding some supplemental,” the pen skidded on the paper, “information.”

Skye looked over to May for assistance. The older woman was sitting up ramrod straight, eyes never leaving their target.

“Number 53, please proceed to desk C,” an automated voice issued from the scrolling board.

The woman at desk C was their target: officially known as Mary Carter, she had taken steps to make her true identity ambiguous, just like her abilities. Ostensibly she was only able to turn invisible, but there was something about her tendency to get into fights that she _always_ won that made SHIELD suspect she wasn’t telling the full truth.

“Can I help you?” Carter drawled.

“I’m here to renew my license.” May wasn’t about to confront Carter in a public place, so the ruse had to continue for a bit longer. She slid the paperwork across the desk. She’d had practice filling out forms during her time in administration. It was soothing even, making the world conform to something as powerless as paper. But really, nothing compared to the power she had when fighting. That was what scared her.

“Okay, Ms. Wei, I just have a few questions to ask you. Would you like to be an organ donor?”

“Yes.” This wasn’t just true of her alias, Lillian Wei, Melinda May fully intended to donate her body to science, if she ever had the grace to die in a situation where salvaging organs was possible.

“And you have a choice of what image you’d like,” Carter slid a piece of paper across the desk. There were four examples:  the image of the state, presumably the state seal, a lighthouse and a plane.

“The airplane,” May said with a smirk.

Carter asked a few more inane questions before requesting that May follow her to the parking lot so they could take the driving portion of the test. May slung behind the seat of the SUV, and waited for Carter to take a seat next to her.

“Right, Ms. Wei, can you please turn on the car, and show me the right and left turn signals.”

May buckled her seat belt and did as instructed. She would wait until they were out of the parking lot, then park the car and confront Carter.

Carter gave her instructions to turn right of the parking lot and continue down the road. May kept her eyes trained on the road, until Carter cleared her throat. “What’s the speed limit?”

May glanced down at the speedometer, which read 45 mph. “Thirty five.” She hit the brakes, slowing the SUV, which was really more suited to driving at breakneck speeds than crawling down a suburban street.

“Now, when you think it’s safe to do so, if you could get into the left lane.”

May flicked on the turn signal, and followed a new series of instructions until they were on a nearly deserted residential lane.

“Now, if you could, please back the car up.” May glanced in the rearview mirror and shifted into reverse.

“When do I stop?”

“Just keep going.”

After about 50 yards, she was instructed to stop. “Now, you won’t fail for forgetting this, but remember to always turn on your hazard lights when backing up.”

May bit back a response about how she had never, in her extend history of driving cars, been taught that particular rule. Instead she calmly made a three point turn and got back on the main road.

Once they were back at the DMV office, May turned off the car, but kept the doors locked. “Ms. Wei, we’re all done.”

May pulled the key from the ignition. “Mary Carter, I’m with SHIELD.”

Carter balked. “I’m sorry, _who_ are you?”

“Agent Melinda May,” she flashed her badge. “We’re wondering why you failed to report to your Agent when requested.”

There was a nervous chuckle. “She never showed up. Really, you could have just tried again. No need for this extended charade.”

“We’re going to have to take you in for questioning.”

“Can’t we work this out without a disturbance?”

May shook her head. “And if you could give me your hands. The handcuffs are just a formality but are required.”

Carter’s voice dropped. “You forget who I am. You’d think that you people would treat us with more respect, seeing that you need us, not the other way around.”

Before May could grab her, Carter flung her weight backwards, toppling out of the car.

 

* * *

 

“Oh my God, finally,” Skye declared, getting to her feet when she saw May pull into the parking lot. “I literally cannot imagine how that could have taken any longer.”

Simmons stood more slowly, taking a sip of her milkshake. Once Skye had declared that she was going to go insane if they had to sit still any longer, the two of them had decided to go to an ice cream store in the plaza.

“Or not,” Skye drawled a second later, when Carter threw herself from the car.

“This is going to make a scene,” Simmons commented dryly, when May launched herself at Carter with a hugely powerful punch.

“I’d call for help but my laptop’s in the car.”

That earned her a laugh. “Please, Skye. It’s The _Cavalry._ She doesn’t need _backup._ ”

Skye smirked in agreement as May dodged a roundhouse kick from Carter. “Yeah, especially not from the boys.”

“No,” was Simmons’s humorously drawled reply.

Skye reached down and picked up her milkshake, taking another sip. Meanwhile, Agent May pushed Carter against the SUV. “There’s that done then—oh. Shit.” Carter’s superpower had manifested itself and suddenly she was no longer visible.

“Oh, I’d love to figure out how she does that,” Simmons declared.

“That’s literally what you _always_ say.”

Simmons pouted. “Well, it’s not every scientist who can say they’re studying things no one has ever studied before.”

Skye would have responded but watching Agent May punch thin air was slightly more interesting. “How does she know what to kick?”

“Ooh, well you can see from the force of the recoil when she’s managed to get a hit in. But what I don’t understand is why Carter doesn’t just run. It’s only up close that May has any chance of hitting her at all.”

“No, no,” Skye shook her head, starting to make sense of the situation. “See she’s trapped up against the car. See every time May will hit her, the car shakes a little. I think she’s handcuffed or something.”

“Now she’s visible again!” Simmons cried.

“Yep, she’s done for. No visible human is a match for Melinda May.”

“You sure?”

Skye nodded. “Yep. See, look. She’s shoving Carter into the car now.”

Simmons clapped her hands together excitedly. “Oh I bet I could convince her to let me run just a few tests.”

“Wait, no. Don’t forget about us!” Skye cupped her hands around her mouth to yell as May got back into the driver’s seat of the car. “You don’t think she’s actually going to leave us?” she asked Simmons.

The question was answered as May drove the car in front of the other two and rolled down the window. “Get in.”

Simmons handed her a milkshake through the window, then scampered after Skye into the car.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a conversation with snowhannamason (leofiitz) on tumblr who wanted to see May go to the DMV. And also SHIELD ladies.


End file.
